Regina man employs shovel collection to battle snowy driveway

For some, one snow shovel fits all situations.

That’s not the case for John Tokarczik.

When the snow piles up on his Harbour Landing driveway — as it did over the weekend — he whips out a collection of four shovels and a snowblower to deal with it.

So why does he need that many shovels?

Each one fills a specific role.

“The big one is a scoop. It picks everything up. Anything looser than that, you use the normal shovel. Then, there’s the steel spade. When snow sticks to the pavement, you need to break it up with this,” he explained.

He has a special snowblower with a shield to protect him from the blowing snow, but he only brings it out for serious situations. He didn’t use it at all last winter.

“Shovelling is very serious business,” he said.

As someone who puts a fair amount of thought into shovelling, he manages to see the bright side of the often-annoying activity.

“We need it, it’s so dry this year, so I’m glad it snowed,” he said.

“I do a lot of exercise, so I either walk seven miles or shovel like this.”